Dennis Ross Digs For Ponies
The man who enabled the derailment of the Camp David II talks by ensuring Israel's upper hand now thinks he has a solution to the Iraq problem. Unsurprisingly, it involves a lot of bluster (I mean "conferences") and little beef:
First, it's time for the Bush administration to insist that a national reconciliation conference be held and not be disbanded until agreement is reached on amendments to the constitution.. . .Second, a long-discussed regional conference with all of Iraq's neighbors should be held. None of them -- Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey -- wants the Bush administration to succeed in Iraq (at least in the way the president defines success). And yet every one of them fears the consequences of an Iraq convulsed in the aftermath of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal. A full-scale civil war, with refugees streaming out of the country, with instability bound to leak across borders, and with other nations intervening to protect their own interests and their Iraqi allies is just as much a nightmare for Iran as it is for Saudi Arabia.
. . .Third, President Bush should inform Maliki that we will not impose a deadline for withdrawal but we are going to negotiate with his government a timetable for our departure. The difference between a deadline and an agreed timetable is the difference between leaving the Iraqis in the lurch and informing them they have to assume responsibilities. The former guarantees preservation of the militias as they anticipate a deepening civil war; the latter puts all sectarian groups on notice that they can shape the future but the clock is ticking and if they don't begin to get serious about reconciliation and about fulfilling their own responsibilities they face the abyss.
So basically we can leave all of a sudden, or we can wag our fingers at the naughty militias before leaving all of a sudden.
Face it, none of these ideas will bear fruit unless you have one thing overall - S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y. The "unity government" was supposed to be a confluence of different sects and ethnic groups that will cooperate towards a solution, but they are isolated behind the Green Zone fortress with little influence over much of the country and the voting only led to sharpening of sectarian lines. They can think of a lot of ideas, but without the manpower or will to enforce those ideas, all they are are writings on a paper in the face of the writings on the wall.
The only way this crisis will be resolved is if a powerful amd unified security force comes in and restores order. Dennis Ross and the rest of the Tinkerbell crowd will just have to accept that we have little control over the form that security force is going take shape as.